


Things My Heart Used To Know

by aintweproudriff



Category: Newsies (1992), Newsies - All Media Types, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: M/M, Multi, Romeo is gay and trans, Romeo's got some trauma but its never explained, Specs is gay and Deaf, and also jackdaveycrutchie, of course i had to add specsromeo to this prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-30
Updated: 2017-10-06
Packaged: 2019-01-07 08:50:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12229596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aintweproudriff/pseuds/aintweproudriff
Summary: Prompt: 15 year old Romeo lives with Medda, but he finds his real parents.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I love getting prompts because so many of them are things I wouldn't think of doing or necessarily want to do until someone else wants it. Like I got this prompt and I was like, "eeeh, I don't know if I can do that, seems really hard." And then I wrote it and I just thought, "wow, this has a ton of potential!"
> 
> Yeah the title is from Anastasia

Benvolio, his cat, pawed at the underside of the door, meowing loudly in his pleas to be let out of Romeo’s bedroom. Suddenly, he turned and pounced at a stray plastic bag. The noise caught Romeo’s attention, and he looked up to watch, laughing at his kitten. 

“Specs,” he turned around to look at his boyfriend and bring his focus to the adorable cat.. Specs didn’t look up from the homework in his lap. “Specs,” Romeo called in a sing-song tone of voice. Realizing why he wasn’t responding, Romeo gave up and turned back to his own homework. 

They sat in silence for long enough to drive anyone insane, and it sure worked for Romeo. It didn’t take long for him to need to talk, or to feel like he needed to walk around. Doing most of his work would have to be good enough; he could keep a passing grade in the class if he got an eighty percent on this assignment. 

Romeo called to Specs one more time, not being surprised when his attempts turned up fruitless. Watching Benvolio gave him an idea though, and with a mischievous grin he stood up, trying his best not to make any movement that would disturb Specs. Slinking backwards, Romeo snuck up behind Specs and jumped onto the bed, flopping right next to his boyfriend and landing on his back. 

It must have scared Specs out of his skin, because he jumped miles into the air. 

“Romeo!” Specs whisper-shouted. “Don’t do that!” 

Romeo smiled happily, looking up at his boyfriend and trying his hardest to change his face into something angelic and adorable. It must have worked, because when Romeo tapped his ear, Specs nodded and grinned, sliding his hearing aids back into his ears. 

“You can’t do that to me, Ro. It’s not fair to sneak up on the Deaf kid.”

“I know,” Romeo’s hand found its way to resting on Specs’s knee. “But I’m just so bored. How do you deal with all this work, it’s too drainin’.”

“Well,” Specs glared down at Romeo, but his eyes shone playfully. “I like to start by not letting my annoying boyfriend get in my way. It also helps when you literally can’t tell there’s anything distracting going on.”

“Very funny, but you ain’t gettin’ rid of me that easily.”

Specs bent over and kissed Romeo’s forehead. “No, I know. I wouldn’t really want to.”

-

Medda always chose the worst times to walk into Romeo’s room. The second he and Specs got comfortably entwined, they heard a knock at the door, and Medda stepped through. 

“Hi boys,” she took a deep breath, one that looked like it took all her energy to muster. “I see I’m interrupting something, and for that I’m sorry. But I think it’s going to be important that you come downstairs, Romeo. Specs, sweetheart, feel free to come as well. But if you want to leave at any point, that’s alright too, okay?”

Romeo and Specs looked at each other, confused. Medda’s voice was never quite so soft and unsure unless something really bad was going on. Romeo remembered when she had to tell Jack that the car his boyfriend David was driving had crashed, or the time she had to talk to Spot about summer school. Her voice was almost a whisper then, and honey-sweet and smooth. Now was almost the same, only her hands were shakier. 

-

They walked downstairs with their fingers interlaced, and their thumbs rubbing each other’s hands gently. Romeo’s brothers, Jack and Spot, were both sitting at the round kitchen table, neither of them looking up. Jack’s boyfriends, David and Crutchie, were on either side of Jack; Spot’s boyfriend Race was next to him. Romeo took the other seat next to Spot, and Specs sat between Crutchie and Romeo. 

Medda came into the room, her face defeated. 

“Boys who aren’t mine,” she looked around the room. Four who hadn’t been adopted by her, three who had. “If you want to leave at any time, you are more than welcome to do so. But this is Romeo’s meeting, so if any of you - even his brothers - are asked to leave, you have to. No exceptions. Make sense?”

Everyone nodded, and Romeo watched as David leaned forward, pointed at Crutchie and then himself, and pointed at the door. Crutchie nodded, and the two boys stood up. 

“We don’t want to intrude at all, Romeo. Thank you, Miss Larkin,” David smiled slightly, and then walked with his boyfriend toward the door. 

Medda shook her head. “How many times,” she asked Jack, “am I going to have to tell that boy to call me Medda?”

Jack smiled and shook his head, still looking at the door from which his boyfriends had left. 

“Uh, hello?” Romeo waved his hand impatiently. “What’s going on?”

Medda’s attention snapped back to Romeo, and a cloud of guilty remembrance swept over her face. 

“Romeo,” she said, sitting down in a chair across from him, the one that David had left vacant. “I know you remember when I adopted you, right? It was eight years ago?”

“Yeah, what about it?”

“Um, in the court, when I signed the adoption papers, one of the clauses said that I could only adopt you on the condition that your guardian at the time gave permission,” Medda folded her hands on the table. Jack leaned forward, and Spot put his hand on Romeo’s shoulder, nodding understandingly. 

“My guardian was my foster mom then, and she consented, so I don’t-”

“Romeo, we uh, didn’t think there were going to be any other guardians to deal with, we thought that was going to be it,” Medda explained, speaking slowly. “The adoption agency finalized it, so did your foster mom. The adoption was totally legal with the information we had, and will keep being legal and valid. But there’s been a complication, because-”

Specs dropped his grip on Romeo’s hand in favor of wrapping his arm around his boyfriend. 

“Well, a couple came in to the adoption agency a while ago. They said they’d lost a child ten years ago, and gave a description of their child. That description didn’t match anyone who had been adopted in their records, so the agency let the couple do a DNA test, and they ran those by their records.”

Romeo’s mind whizzed as his brain connected the dots of what Medda was saying. 

“Their DNA matched yours, Romeo. They think- they know they’ve found your birth parents.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay yeah i like this story a lot. you ever forget how much you love a certain character and then you remember and it hits you in the face? yeah i love romeo a lot

“I don’t understand. They tried to take my DNA and match it to people a long time ago, and it never worked then. It never gave us anything on who my parents might be. Why does it work now?”

“That’s something I can’t tell you, Ro. I don’t have that answer,” Medda answered him calmly, despite his obvious state of shock. 

Romeo almost wished his mind was whizzing still, he wished he could think at all. But all he could see, all he could make sense of, was the color red. He didn’t understand this; for years he wished he had real parents - birth parents. After Medda adopted him, however, he didn’t want that as much anymore. It would have been nice to have a dad, maybe, to teach him how to act more “manly” when he started going on testosterone, but he never really needed one. He had a mom who chose him, who loved and supported him. And he had brothers, and friends, and a boyfriend. He had been so happy with what he had.   
How dare these people interrupt that, after all they’d done? They were the ones who lost him and couldn’t find him. They were the ones who never responded when the police had looked for them. They were the ones who, whether they knew it or not, had forced him into foster homes. The foster homes that must have been so bad he couldn’t remember them, or anything before them. The foster homes from which Medda rescued him.   
He had a family, and these people weren’t it.

And yet, they had been looking for them. They must have gone to every adoption agency in the city, looking for records of their long-lost child. He could only imagine that they’d gone to the police before that, and probably went through hell to find him. And they may not have raised him, but they were his parents. Didn’t he owe them something, just for the work they had done? Didn’t he, in a way, owe them something just because they shared his biology?

Another thought crossed his mind, and his heart soured. His parents had lost a little girl. They’d spent years looking for their daughter, which he wasn’t. What if he wasn’t what they wanted? Would he be able to handle disappointing his parents, even if they weren’t his mom and dad?

“Romeo,” Specs interrupted his thinking. “Do you want us to stay with you? I can leave, if you want me to.”

“I can leave too, if you only want your family here,” Race added, looking at his friend with concern. 

Romeo shook his head, and he noticed, for the first time, a tear. 

“No,” he gasped, trying to steady his breathing. “I want you all here. You’re my family.”

Specs smiled slightly and kissed Romeo’s head. “Okay, Mo. If you want us to leave, you tell us.”

Romeo nodded, grateful.   
Race took Romeo’s hand, Jack and Spot smiled at him, and Specs pulled him closer. 

“Romeo, sweetheart,” Medda leaned forward so she could lower the volume of her voice. “I hate to ask this so soon, and I know you’re emotional right now, so I don’t want to put more pressure on you. But I have to ask: what do you want to do now?”

Romeo sniffed and said the first thing that came to his mind. “I wanna know more ‘bout them. What are they like? What are their names? How did they lose me?”

“All I know is their names: Michael and Angelina Torres. I have their phone number, though, if you want to call them. Romeo, you can have as much or as little contact with them as you want, okay?” Medda assured him. “It’s up to you. But I want you to know that they’ve asked that if you want to see them, that it be soon. They’ve really missed you. And I need to know soon if you want-”

“I want to talk to them,” Romeo lifted his head to look at his mom. “I wanna know what they’re like.”

Medda nodded. “Okay, that’s fine. Do you want me to call them?”

Romeo nodded, and he could feel Specs’s chest rise and fall. 

Medda picked up the phone. “Now?” she asked, looking over to him with a worried look. 

He nodded again. “Now or never, I guess. I’m only gonna freak myself out more by not knowin’ what they’re like.”

Medda picked up a piece of paper that laid next to the phone, and dialed a number. The boys at the table looked at each other, each of them nervously awkward. 

“Hello!” she said into the receiver. “Is this Angelina Torres? Hi Angelina, my name is Medda Larkin, and I’m the adoptive mother of your child. Yes, really!”   
Medda was smiling as she spoke, looking around the kitchen absentmindedly.   
“Well, you see,” her smile dropped. “Your child, uh, is probably not the same as you remember. Well, yeah, it has been ten years, and children do grow, but it’s more than that. Actually, your child is transitioning from female to male, and uses he/him pronouns instead of she/her. Uh-huh. Yes,” Medda looked anxious as she gave this news to Romeo’s mother, but her eyes crinkled in a smile when she finished and she shot a thumbs-up to the table. 

All the boys laughed, relieved that Romeo’s parents were so accepting. 

“His name is Romeo now. Yeah, cute name, isn’t it?” she laughed, but her face grew somber again. “Another thing, actually. Unfortunately, he suffered from some trauma after he lost you. He doesn’t remember anything about the two of you, or about the foster homes he was in before he came to live with me. Yes. I’m very sorry, Mrs. Torres,” she nodded along. “I’m thankful he came to my house as well.”

Romeo and Medda made eye contact, and he gave her a small smile. He didn’t want to think about what could have happened to him if he hadn’t been adopted by her. 

“Luckily, he does want to meet you and your husband. I think he really wants to know about what happened, and about what the two of you are like,” she smiled back at Romeo, who nodded in affirmation. “So if, at some point, the two of you wanted to come over to my house and meet him and the rest of our family, you would be more than welcome.”

Romeo looked around at “the rest of our family.” He had just called them family, of course, and they were. His brothers, his best friends, his brothers’ boyfriends, and his own boyfriend: they were all good for him. The people around him were totally in tune to what Medda was saying. 

“Sometime this Saturday? That would be perfect. Could we do late afternoon, like four o’clock?” 

As Medda gave his birth mother the details of where their house was and coordinated the visit, Romeo turned his face toward Specs’s. His boyfriend smiled down at him, and used his thumb to wipe away a stray tear. Romeo kissed him gently, and buried his head into his shoulder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Let me know how you felt about this chapter!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ooooh its been a while since ive updated this fic. here you go

Saturday always comes slower when you’re hoping for it to come. And it always sneaks up on you when you aren’t ready for it to come. By that logic, Saturday should have appeared exactly when Romeo thought it would. He wasn’t prepared for it at all, but he was so excited for it. 

-

“Romeo, are you feelin’ okay?” Spot laughed at his anxious brother as the two of them sat on the couch. Benvolio the kitten sat on Romeo’s lap, and Romeo pet him absentmindedly.   
Jack was roaming around the house, helping Medda finish cleaning. Romeo could tell that despite the music playing and the way that his mom and brother were singing along, both of them were nervous. They kept moving chairs to one place, then moving them back to the original placement and back again. Specs was driving Race over to Medda’s house, because Romeo had specifically asked for both of them to be there. 

“Yeah, I’m fine. I just- I don’t know. Can I rant to you, Spot?”

Spot shuffled around in his seat, “Dunno how much help I’ll be, but sure. Knock yourself out, man.”

“It’s just, this is my mom and my dad, you know?” Romeo launched into the words that had been plaguing him all week. “And there’s so many things that could go wrong with this. What if they don’t like me? What if I’m not the kid they lost? Because I’m not, and even though I know my mom said she was okay with me bein’ a boy, what if they don’t really think that? And Medda didn’t even mention Specs. Having a son is one thing, right? What about having a gay son?”

Specs and Race walked in, just as Romeo began talking about his boyfriend. 

“What’s going on?” Specs asked, his hands moving at his sides in a kind of muttered sign. 

“Romeo’s havin’ a bit of a crisis about all this,” Spot answered, grabbing at Race’s hand and pulling him in for a hug. 

“About what, Mo?” Specs sat down next to Romeo, slinging his arm around him and cradling his head against his chest. Benvolio walked over to sit on Specs’s lap instead. 

“What if my parents don’t like me, Specs?”

Romeo watched as Specs squinted his eyes, taking a deep, distressed breath. 

“They’re gonna like you,” he said. “They’ve gotta. And they’d be idiots not to like you.”

“Yeah, but what if-”

Specs didn’t even let Romeo finish. “Listen, Ro. You’re right. They might not actually like you. Sometimes parents don’t really like their kids.”

Race gave a low chuckle at that, swallowing and giving a knowing nod. 

“But, on the off chance that they don’t like you, you can still say that you’re one of the lucky ones. Because how many kids whose parents don’t like them are able to say that they have a forever family waiting for them? With a mom who loves them more than their biological parents deserve to?” Specs continued. “Or two incredible brothers, one best friend slash brother-in-law,” Race hit Specs at that point, “and a boyfriend who’s gonna be there for you no matter what?”

Romeo laughed, his cheeks bright red. He buried his face into Specs’s chest, and he could hear Race and Spot making fun of them but he didn’t care. 

A thought crossed his mind and he bolted upwards, almost falling out of Specs’s grip. 

“What if,” he asked slowly. “Do you guys think they might want to take me away from this house? Like what if they invite me to live with them?”

Before anyone could answer his question, the doorbell rang. Medda burst into the room, her face anxious. 

“Okay boys,” she smiled, breathing in. “Ready for this?” 

“As we’ll ever be,” Specs said, and Romeo nodded before kissing Specs’s cheek. 

Medda traced her hand on the top of the couch as she walked over to the door. She opened it with one more deep breath, and then put on a voice that sounded scarily like the one she used when she was performing. 

“Hi, you must be Angelina! Oh, and Michael, right?” Medda shook their hands, clasping both of her hands around the one hand they stuck out. “It’s so nice to finally meet you. Come on in!”

Romeo dropped Specs’s hand as his parents entered the room. Before the five boys stood a man and a woman, both unusually short, with dark hair and dark eyes. 

Medda gestured around. “Some of these boys are my sons, two of them are not. But the one you want to meet,” she laughed and clapped Romeo’s back, “is right here. This is Romeo.”

Romeo stood up, his stomach twisting and turning into knots. He smiled at these people, being struck with how much they actually looked like him. Or, he supposed, how much he looked like them. 

“Hi,” he said, not knowing what else he could say in a situation like this. He didn’t have to worry about that long, though, because before he knew it, his mom was pulling him into a hug.   
Romeo noticed a million little things in that moment. The way his mom smelled like vanilla, how he was almost an inch taller than she was, how his dad had the same skinny build as Romeo. A wave of information crashed over him, but brought no memories with it. 

When his mom pulled away, she grabbed his shoulders and looked him up and down, smiling wide. 

“These are my brothers,” he said, remembering that there were other people in the room. “This is Jack, and this is Spot,” Romeo gestured to each boy. “And this is Race, my best friend and Spot’s boyfriend.”

Romeo’s dad shook the hand of each boy as he was introduced, clapping each of them on the back. 

“And,” Romeo gulped. “This is my boyfriend Specs.”

“Oh!” Romeo’s mom gasped and smiled. “It’s so nice to meet you all. I’m terrible with names, so I’ll probably forget who’s who in a few minutes here.”

Romeo breathed, finally relieved. He took half a second to ponder how lucky he must have gotten, to have these people actually be his parents. 

“I guess we should talk about what happened,” his dad spoke for the first time. “How much do you actually know?”

“I don’t remember anything about you guys. I remember being at my first foster home, and even most of that I can’t remember. Which, apparently, could be a good thing,” Romeo shrugged. “I probably don’t want to know what happened there. But I do want to know about what my life was like before foster homes.”

“What do you want to know?” his mom sat down, and he and his dad did the same. 

“Everything important, I guess. What was my name? How did I get lost? What was our family like; do I have other family?”

Michael stopped him. “Most of our family, including our parents,” he gestured to his wife, “still live in the Philippines. We came over before you were born with my brother and his wife, but they live in California now. So there really isn’t any more family around here for you to meet.”

“Your name was Isabella, but I see now how completely wrong that name would be,” his mom continued. “And, uh, you had just turned five when we lost you. We were on a weekend trip, just up to see some of the important sights around New York. Things a little kid would enjoy, you know? And at Coney Island, we got off a ride; you had been in the car in front of us. We had watched you get off, but suddenly we turned around and couldn’t find you.”

“We looked for you everywhere, had people call you, called over the intercom system, and we filed a missing child report,” his dad shook his head and took Angelina’s hand. “But even the police couldn’t find you. We assumed you’d been taken, and that you must have been dead.” His expression morphed from sadness to relief. “But I guess you got lost in the system. And while I’m glad you’re okay now, I would have done anything to get my child back a few years ago. I still would have a week ago, but I don’t have to now.” 

Romeo bit his tongue to stop himself from crying. Instead, he nodded and reached for his mother’s hand, realizing that she had tears on her face. 

“Listen,” his father kept speaking. “I know it’s all a bit sudden still. You only found out about us a few days ago, and we only found out we had a son a few days ago. But we’ve always talked about finding you again. And for almost ten years, all we’ve wanted was to have you back in our home.”

Specs coughed, and Romeo couldn’t tell if it had a point or it was by accident. 

His mom interrupted. “So, if you’re willing, you’re more than welcome to move in with us. Or move in with us for some of the time. We can figure it out legally, if you want, and get parental rights over you again.”

Romeo couldn’t stop himself from shaking his head violently. Race hit his leg, reminding him how rude he was being. 

“Oh, okay,” his mom sniffed loudly, wiping her eye.

“Ithasnothingtodowithyou!” Romeo spit out, rushing to reassure these people who had been looking for him for years. “It’s just that, I mean, Medda and Jack and Spot and Race and Specs have been my family for a long time now. They’re my mom and my brothers and my boyfriend. You’re my parents and of course I’m glad to have found you again and of course I’ll visit you, but I really think this is where I should live.”

He looked around the room. Medda wiped away a tear in the same way Angelina had. Jack’s arm was around Spot’s shoulders, and Spot’s hand was on Race’s. 

“I’ll visit you every week, if I can,” he said. “I want to get to know you better, but I don’t think I’ll be able to move in with you. I hope that’s okay.”

Angelina rested her head on Michael’s chest. 

“Yeah,” she whispered. “That’s alright.”

His mother put her contact information into his cell phone; address, phone number, e-mail, and anything else he needed. He’d be at their house next Friday afternoon, to talk and spend time together. 

-

In the days that followed, Romeo found himself constantly grateful for his family. To have parents that had once loved him and promised to love him again, and to have siblings, friends, a mother, a cat, and a boyfriend who would always be there for him seemed like he was too lucky. 

This was his family. It was maybe not the way a normal family always worked, but it was exactly how he wanted his to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! If you liked it, leave me a comment or kudo to let me know! Follow me on tumblr @spot-and-all-his-cronies, or @javidblue!

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, let me know what you thought!
> 
> Come talk to me on tumblr @spot-and-all-his-cronies, or follow my fanfic account @javidblue


End file.
